Top News Stories

Open Primary Can Go Before Voters

Story by AZPM Staff

last updated August 17, 2012

The Arizona Supreme Court Friday ordered the open primary initiative onto the November general election ballot.

In a brief order, the court said it was overturning a Maricopa County Superior Court judge's order that the initiative be disqualified.

That was based on a claim by Republican opponents of the measure that it violated the state Constitution's requirement that a proposed constitutional amendment deal with one issue.

The open primary would change the fundamental election system in the state to allow all candidates to run on a single ballot for a given office, and all voters to decide among them. The top two vote getters, regardless of party, would move on to the general election.

The proposal is being pushed by a group called the Open Government Committee, headed by former Phoenix mayor Paul Johnson.

Republicans and Democrats are opposed to it, saying it would allow for sham candidates running under false party affiliations to undermine the two-party system.

Comment

AZPM encourages comments, but comments that contain profanity, unrelated information,
threats, libel, defamatory statements, obscenities, pornography or that violate the law are
not allowed. Comments that promote commercial products or services are not allowed. Comments
in violation of this policy will be removed. Continued posting of comments that violate this
policy will result in the commenter being banned from the site.

By submitting your comments, you hereby give AZPM the right to post your comments
and potentially use them in any other form of media operated by this institution.